If you’ve been keeping up with Meant To Be Eaten, you know that our last few seasons were produced in collaboration with Gastronomica, the Journal for Food Studies. Gastronomica now has its very own feed on the Heritage Radio Network where they are continuing this work! So, if you’re a fan of Meant To Be Eaten, go check out Gastronomica and subscribe! Here’s a little sneak peak of what you can expect. On this episode, host Jaclyn Rohel, a member of the Gastronomica Editorial Collective, talks with food historian Krystyn Moon and biologist Jennifer Rhode Ward about their new research on the complexities of taste, identity, and food access in Cuba. Krystyn and Jennifer shed light on why hierarchies of taste persist even amidst state attempts to flatten social hierarchies.

This episode is part of a collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, hosted by editorial collective member Jaclyn Rohel. Jaclyn shares some new and soon-to-be published titles in food studies and is joined by her Gastronomica colleague Melissa Fuster in conversation about Melissa’s new book, Caribeños at the Table: How Migration, Health, and Race Intersect in New York City (UNC Press, 2021). An expert in both public health nutrition and food studies, Melissa weaves together research in history, policy, health, and everyday life to connect newcomers’ culinary practices to the complex structural factors that shape well-being. Melissa also discusses how this work led her to develop her community-based research initiative, the Latin American Restaurants in Action Project.

This episode is part of a collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Paula Johnson. In this episode, curator Stephen Velasquez discusses how activism and food history come together in a graphic calendar. The Calendario de Comida 1976, created by California-based artist collectives in 1975, sought to bring attention to alternative foodways and indigenous food knowledges as part of a broader social justice movement. Stephen discusses some of the imagery within the calendar and expands on the role of Chicano activists in reimagining colonial histories and identity.

This episode is part of a collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Krishnendu Ray. The tomato is a staple ingredient in Indian subcontinental cooking, but this is a relatively recent phenomenon. In this episode, anthropologist Sucharita Kanjilal explains how tomatoes became incorporated into Indian pantries in the 20th century. Weaving together the histories of two British imports -- the tomato and the recipe -- she discusses the fluidity of taste-making in postcolonial India. Photo courtesy of Sucharita Kanjilal.

This episode is part of a collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Daniel Bender. Aya H. Kimura unpacks the biocultural history of tsukemono (Japanese pickles). She discusses the different kinds of traditional tsukemono in Japanese dining cultures and explains how these preserves are made. She also offfers insight into how modern agriculture has affected tsukemono.

This episode is part of a collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member James Farrer. Geographer Benjamin Schrager talks about his new article, “Risky but Raw: On (Not) Regulating One of the Most High-Risk Dishes in Japan,” published in Gastronomica (issue 21.3). He raises awareness about food risk and discusses the tastes and textures of some raw chicken dishes, local regulatory responses, and the development of the poultry industry in Japan more broadly.

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Josée Johnston. Raúl Matta and Padma Panchapakesan discuss how ideas of "good taste" have changed over time with the aid of different judgment devices. Focusing on the role of chefs, they unpack the sociology of tastemakers amidst the changing landscape of the restaurant industry.

This episode offers a sneak peek behind the scenes at Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies. Lisa Haushofer hosts a roundtable live from the 2021 Food Studies conference, Just Food: Because It Is Never Just Food. Editors from the Gastronomica editorial collective – Amy Trubek, Paula Johnson, and Daniel Bender – reveal what’s coming down the pipeline and share their thoughts on what they’d like to read in Gastronomica.

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Melissa Fuster. Michaël Bruckert explores meat industrialization in South India. Recounting his fieldwork in the region of Tamil Nadu, Bruckert traces the commoditization of poultry, from farms, markets, and butcher shops to eateries, home kitchens, and consumers’ plates. In this global South context, he explains how recent developments in animal agriculture have changed how people think about chicken - as animal and as meat - and have in the process materially transformed the chicken itself.

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Paula Johnson. V. Constanza Ocampo-Raeder explores human-nature relationships through the social life of camarones, a Peruvian river crustacean. Drawing together stories of landscape, labor and gastronomic revival, Ocampo-Raeder distills the complexity of crawfish-catching from river to plate.

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Bob Valgenti. Eric Funabashi discusses Japanese immigrants' culinary experiences in Brazil following the initial migration of Japanese workers to São Paulo’s coffee farms in 1908. Drawing on published cookbooks and immigrants’ private diaries, he shows how Japanese immigrants forged new culinary practices and identities in Brazil over the course of the 20th century.

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Jaclyn Rohel. Jaclyn is joined by her colleague, anthropologist Janita Van Dyk, to introduce a new feature on recent and upcoming books in Food Studies, “What to Read Now.” This episode focuses on Just the Tonic: A Natural History of Tonic Water (Kew Publishing, 2019) in conversation with authors Kim Walker and Mark Nesbitt to explore sparkling water in the history of medicine, in cocktail cultures, and in the archives.

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Krishnendu Ray. Alison Hope Alkon and Rafi Grosglik discuss representations of race in food media. Drawing on examples from contemporary popular culture, they explore how the medium of television engages with racial inequalities and how it could act as a critical intervention for social change.

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Daniel Bender. Chef Rob Connoley discusses culinary collaboration and the roots of Ozark cuisine at his research-driven restaurant, Bulrush. Drawing on his experiences of shared knowledge creation with a range of local academic and culture partners, Connoley helps bring place-based storytelling to the forefront of culinary creation.

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, guest hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Melissa Fuster. Historian Amy Bentley returns to the show to discuss the politics of food and nutrition. She traces how the Reagan administration 40 years ago shifted (deliberately or inadvertently) the classification of ketchup from a condiment to a vegetable in an effort to overhaul national school lunch programs and cut government costs, a move that disproportionately affected the health of lower-income children.

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, guest hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Jessica Carbone. Alexis Agliano Sanborn explores how Japan's school lunch programs connected people and supported communities in the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Highlighting civil-society initiatives, she shows how school lunch programs were a source of resiliency in local food supply and distribution networks.

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies , guest hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Krishnendu Ray. Historians Michelle T. King and Wendy Jia-Chen Fu discuss the stigmatization of Chinese food and eating habits in Anglophone media coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. They weigh in on common questions surrounding wet markets and the wildlife trade in Chinese food systems, dispel misinformation, and share ways to both combat negative stereotypes about Chinese food and support Chinese American communities in the United States.

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies , guest hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Jaclyn Rohel. Alyshia Gálvez explores the work of transnational food couriers known as paqueteros and paqueteras. These informal grassroots entrepreneurs connect people and places across international borders through the delivery of goods, care packages, and specialty and traditional foods. Drawing on ethnographic research of micro-local foodways in Mexico (Puebla) and the United States (New York) and the connections between them, Gálvez discusses how informal food couriers humanize an increasingly industrialized food system in the post-NAFTA landscape. Please note that around the 10-min mark, Professor Gálvez mentions having been asked by federal attorneys to serve as an expert witness, while she meant to say that she had been approached by public defenders in that capacity.

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, guest hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Bob Valgenti. Bryan Dale and Jo Sharma share a COVID-19 dispatch from Toronto, Canada. They discuss how their project "Feeding the City, Pandemic and Beyond" has developed a model of public scholarship that documents food system experiences, community challenges and local resilience. By engaging grassroots voices, from farmers and urban growers to school food advocates, market provisioners and other local stakeholders, they highlight actions toward sustainable food solutions for building a socially just and resilient global city.

This episode is part of a special series in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies , guest hosted by Gastronomica editorial collective member Daniel Bender. John Broadway problematizes how a global restaurant ranking system produced an irony in haute cuisine in the years prior to the pandemic: elite, hypermobile customers travelling the world to eat hyperlocal food in celebrated restaurants. Commenting on restaurant rankings, access and exclusivity, he positions this phenomenon in light of staggering inequality in contemporary food systems.